The Green Desk: Manure and Dung Beetles: 10th September, 2024

Things got shitty on the Green Desk today — New Zealand has a poo problem: An estimated 100 million tonnes of cow and sheep manure fall onto New Zealand pastures each year, causing an environmental and economic stink. 

So reporter Jack Marshall went to see a man about dung beetles. Dung Beetle Innovations’s Dr. Shaun Forgie is a specialist in dung beetle reproduction, ecology and evolution. And if he has his way, every farm in New Zealand will have these bugs following around their animals.